It has been in my experience that when I am most sorrowful for the sinner, I love him the most, and I am moved to plead for him before the throne of the Most High Judge. We are often uncomfortable around the carnal man. His words offend our sensibilities. His ideas counter our convictions. As he converses, obliviously and ignorantly, we begin to see his heart. As a man speaks, so he is. Why do our hearts sometimes despise him? Do we hate him? Why does he anger us? It is here that we see our hearts. It is easy to see the sins of others; it is more difficult to see our own. Hatred, jealousy, bitterness, wrath, backbiting, slander, and gossip are carnal works. They proceed from an unloving, wicked, and impure heart. If one wishes to break this heart, he must know the love of God in the gospel. Consider the following passages of Scripture:
Elisha looks at the messenger Hazael and begins to weep. He experiences great sorrow for the sinner:
And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.” And Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be king over Syria.” Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” But the next day he took the bed cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, till he died. And Hazael became king in his place. (2 Kings 8:11-15)
Elisha wept because he knew the great sins that Hazael would committ. What sorrow the man of God will experience! He weeps because he loves.
Note, next, the way in which Jeremiah weeps for the wicked Israelites who recieved the just recompense for their unbelief:
Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9:1)
Note next the way in which Paul spoke to the Philippians about the enemies of the cross:
For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Philippians 4:18-9)
He speaks of the enemies of the cross with tears! Do we?!
Note next the way Lot related to the sinners around him in 2 Peter 2:7-8:
and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)
Lot was greatly distressed by the conduct of the wicked; his soul was tormented by what he saw and heard. Do our souls feel a tormenting weight and sorrow for a lost world?
Note next the language of the Pslamist in 119:136, 158:
“My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.”
“I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.”
The Psalmist has a great zeal for the Lord’s law. Tears fill his eyes when it is broken. Do we share in his heart?
Indeed, there is a real hatred for sin in the Christian’s soul, even as his hatred is tempered by love for the sinner’s soul. It is not some fuzzy love stripped of all justice and righteousness. It is a perfect love, the kind of love that comes from God (1 John 4:7-8). No Christian can say he loves God if he does not love the wretched sinner. For so was the Christian in times past! (Ephesians 2:1-7; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
Application:
The key to loving the sinner and hating the sin is to know the heart of God. Do you know his heart? Perhaps, you just know his mind. Perhaps, you just know his truth but walk ignorantly of his person. The man who has not the heart of God will become a Pharisee with his doctrine. Meditate, therefore, heavily upon the love of God in the gospel. Love is from God, and thusly, he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). You were not looking for God, but he was looking for you. You were not loving God, but he was loving you. He demonstrates his love for you in the gospel, even when you were still a sinner. You who have been enlightened by the gospel: Walk with grief-stricken joy, and love the heathen around you. He knows not what he does.
Whoever . . . has tasted of the love Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, Yea, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight; and, if the providence of God commits a dispensation of the gospel, and care of souls to him, he will feel the warmest emotions of friendship and tenderness, while he beseeches them by the tender mercies of God, and even while he warns them by his terrors.
As to your opponent, I wish, that, before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write. . . . [If he is a believer,] in a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts. . . . [If he is an unconverted person,] he is a more proper object of your compassion than your anger. Alas! “He knows not what he does.” But you know who has made you to differ.
Working with you for sorrowful love,
Vince R.
How to Love One Another when there are Differences Among You
April 17, 2009
John Piper’s recent “Taste & See” article truly captures the kind of humility it takes to be around those who differ from you. I am greatly thankful for this helpful articulation; and I am very humbled by God’ s grace, even as he continues to rescue my sinful heart by teaching me these principles in application. This side of glory, I will never be finished learning them, and neither will you.
Working with you for Love,
Vince R.
Preaching to Heart Part II: Watching Pastor Paul at Colossae
February 27, 2009
“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you…” Colossians 2:1
There is a great struggle spoken of in this passage. Pastor Paul writes of it to these believers. It is a great struggle he has for the church at Colossae and for the believers at Laodicea. He must be struggling inwardly. Paul was a man of the heart. His messages emitted naturally from a newborn heart–a heart suffering for the sake of the church, a heart filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. His is a heart that received from God a certain calling. He is as he said earlier, “a minister.” What is the main focus of his ministry?
“And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which you has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” Colossians 1:21-23
Here we see that Paul ministers to God’s people for their sanctification. God is working through Christ to present his people “holy,” “blameless,” and “above reproach” before him. The main end of the minister’s work, therefore, is help God’s people reach these fruits of sanctification–holiness and blamelessness. If the minister is not aiming for this, what is he doing? He is not following the lead of Pastor Paul; and likewise, what Bible is leading him?
More particulary, we see that Paul exhorts the people toward these fruits by way of three qualities–faithfulness, stability, and steadfastness. If a minister is not exhorting his people to these three qualities, what is he doing? He is not following the lead of Pastor Paul.
But this is made even more particular. Look at what the people are told to be faithful to, stable in, and steadfast for:
“not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which you has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.” v. 23
This clearly demonstrates the way for a people to be holy, the way for a people to be blameless. The way for a people truly to be God’s people is found in their faithfulness to the gospel, their stability in the gospel, and their steadfastness for the gospel. Paul says at the end of this verse that he was made a minister of that gospel. If we say we are ministers of the gospel, are we even preaching it? If we are not preaching the gospel, we are not ministers of it. Indeed, we cease to be ministers of anything the Bible has any knowledge of. We have fallen from our ministership.
Paul says a little later that he is suffering for the church because “[he] became a minister [to it]” (1:24-25). He then clearly acknowledges the nature of that ministry. It is a “stewardship from God given to him for [the church]” (1:25). The minister who calls the ministry his own with no heart-felt knowledge of the stewardship of it, ceases to be the minister the Bible speaks of. He is a selfish man, building a kingdom, not God’s, but rather his own.
Stewardship signifies reception. If God has called you to this ministry of the gospel, why is there no reception? You spurn the calling of the Lord, like some disobedient Jonah. Away to Tarshish, yet God will find you! A giant fish awaits the called runner. But Paul did not run. It says in Acts 26:14 that upon the call from the Lord, he had “fallen on the ground.”
Stewardship signifies holding. The minister of the gospel holds something that is not his own. He has had something “entrusted” to him (See 1 Timothy 1:11). It is not his own, yet why do some ministers act as though they invented the gospel?
”Man never could nor would have invented and devised a gospel which would lay him low, and secure to the Lord God all the honor and praise.” -C.H. Spurgeon
If any man has forgotten the nature of the gospel as here explained by Mr. Spurgeon, what is he preaching? The end of the preaching of the gospel is the glory and praise of the Lord God, not the praises of men to the minister.
Stewardship also signifies selflessness. “the stewardship from God that was given to me for you.” It is not given by God for the ministers own personal parading prideful pulpiteering! God has given the minister the stewardship for the sake of others. Pastor Paul understood that he was given the ministry for the church, not himself.
Stewardship also signfies faithfulness. “…to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.” Paul refused to do the ministry half-heartedly. He declared the whole counsel of God! He made it fully known! This is the faithfulness of the minister. He knows his mission, and he does it, fully. What mystery has been made known to us! Yet we preach some other thing as though there is no mystery and all people knew of it. Don’t ever assume your people already know the mystery; and don’t ever think they know it well enough.
“Never be content with your grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than any diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust.” - C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life
The minister of God also has one proclamation for his people. “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (1:27-28)
What message do we preach? Is it Christ and him crucified? For Paul would know of nothing else! (See 1 Corinthians 2:1) What goofy, moralizing, cream-puff exhortations fill the pulpits of men who preach something other than Christ! They want growth of church, but they forgot the seed–the gospel! People may have ears for moralistic exhortation, but their hearts will be far from Christ and closer to their own self-righteousness. “Stop complaining” is no sermon content! Even the pagans don’t like complainers. God’s people will stop complaining when they understand the gospel, when they see that the rock guiding them in the desert is Christ (See 1 Corinthians 10:1-11).
The minister of God also has one process for his people. “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.” The only wisdom Paul knows of he gets from Scripture. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding” (Psalm 111:10). Also, Paul knows that his Lord is a truine Lord. He goes on to say, “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3). If a minister wants wise and knoweledgable people with good understanding his process should be to warn them and teach them with this wisdom; that is with this Christ.
The minister of God also has one purpose for his people. “that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” That is the purpose the minister of God has for others–their maturity in Christ. For indeed, he must present them before God! Will they be mature in Christ? But yes, they will with God’s help.
The minister of God also has one power for his people. “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (1:29). The minister of God knows that two very difficult truths exist together.
1.) I must work, toil, and struggle. (This is our responsibility.)
2.) God gives the strength to endure that toil and struggle. (This is his sovereignty.)
And so, this was the struggle Paul had within him for the church. He wanted to declare to them the riches of Christ for their joy and God’s glory. What else is the minister to do?
Working with you to preach to the heart,
Vince R.
What is Christian Eloquence? Thoughts on John Piper’s Message at the Desiring God National Conference 2008
October 2, 2008
Hearing John Piper speak on Christian eloquence at the Desiring God National Conference 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota elated my soul. He spoke of assonance, consonance, iambic pentameter, cadence, and parallelism. What a mighty call to use words to their fullest effect in order to describe Jesus Christ indeed as he who has surpassing worth and excellencies! He is worthy of all our language convention that works to present him as the Supreme and Glorious King. We are speaking creatures who are called out of darkness to proclaim the excellencies of him who called us to his marvelous light.
I never forgot the words of my pastor at home: “Don’t speak with the spirit of persuasion: Speak with the Spirit of God.”
Here is how I would define and differentiate between Christian eloquence and lofty, arrogant eloquence.
Christian eloquence is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit through the Christ-centered direction of language convention in proclamations which magnify and exalt the excellencies of Christ and the finality and meaning of the cross.
Lofty arrogant eloquence is the manifestation of the sinful nature through the self-centered direction of language convention in proclamations which magnify man and exalt the false excellencies of the human peformance over and against the crucified Lord.
James Dennie said this:
“No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”
The Bible eloquently demonstrates this truth in 1 Corinthians:
“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being may boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” 1 Corinthians 1:27-31
Check out this sermon that cemented my soul and confirmed my calling. Don’t waste your eloquence; make much of Him with every word that exalts his name and proclaims his cross.
Working with you to proclaim the excellencies of Christ with all unction and demonstration of Spirit,
Vince R.
If I had the resources, I’d be in Minneapolis, Minnesota in September. I look forward to the sermons on the internet after this occurs. As an English guy, this conference is causing my mouth to water. Words really are powerful enough to get us a man like Hitler. Don’t forget it. God’s words are really powerful enough to create the entire universe. Don’t ever forget that!
Working with you to comprehend the powerful tool of Words,
Vince R.
